Why should you respond to customer complaints on a personal level? The silent observer's perspective

Purpose This paper analyzes the effect of company response style and complaint source on silent observers' reactions to a service failure episode vented on Twitter. Design/methodology/approach In a 2 × 2 experimental design, company response style (personalized vs automatic) and complaint source (ordinary Twitter user vs influencer) were manipulated to test the hypotheses. Findings Complaint source moderates the effect of company response style...